Hunting to the Rhythm of the Beat
by 332249
Summary: The demon from Buffy's "Once More with Feeling" is back, and Buffy is hot on his trail. The Winchester boys are so DONE with this song and dance routine.


_Duh! Duh! Duh! Another one bites the dust!_

Buffy and her team of friends raced toward the power chord echoing from an abandoned warehouse: Buffy with her fists balled tightly, ready to beat down the demon causing people to dance themselves to a fiery death. Willow with her magics and spell ingredients, ready to destroy for good the summoning charm to prevent the demon from ever coming back. And Xander with a fire extinguisher, ready in case they were already too late. (Not-so-spontaneous human combustion was gross to clean up after!)

_Duh! Duh! Duh! Another one bites the dust!_

The trio skidded to an astonished halt as gunshots punctuated the chorus.

_BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! Another one bites the dust!_

With each 'blam' another escaping vampire (vampire?!) in a different corner of the warehouse collapsed under the concussive force of a bullet in the back. It didn't kill them, of course, but it did slow them down considerably.

A man a few years older than Buffy danced his way across the floor, each head bop and step taken to the rhythm of the beat. Nickel-plated pistol in one hand and machete in the other, the dancer gracefully stalked his temporarily downed prey. The music blared from the speakers of a gorgeous, classic muscle car, haphazardly parked in the open bay. The still-open driver's door let the cassette tape music flow through the big room. As Freddy Mercury sang out the last notes of 'Another One Bites the Dust' the machete swung, neatly decapitating the nearest vampire in an explosion of dust and ash.

"Hey! Why does he get a cool classic?" Xander complained. "All me and Anya got was a retro-Broadway original!"

The man's head continued to bop as he sashayed his way to the next vampire still struggling to get its feet under it. "Come on, Sammy!" he called to another man by the exit door, "Get your groove on!"

"No." Sammy shook his head. "You are enjoying that way too much, Dean."

"Uh… Xander, Buff, I don't think this is the demon's doing," Willow offered.

The vampire finally got its coordination back and tried to rush Dean.

_Punch! Punch! Punch!_

Reeling from the repeated fist to the face, it stumbled backwards and barely managed to twist so it could catch itself on all fours.

_Another one bites the dust!_

Again, the machete swung on cue to explode vampire ash on the word 'dust.'

Sammy shook his head in exasperation before decapitating the third and last… nowhere near any of the beats to the song.

"Dammit!" Dean groused. "I needed one more verse."

"Dude. Seriously?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "Whatever, Sammy. You're just jealous that I got all the moves and you don't. Besides, these things actually turn into dust! I couldn't ignore it when the universe gives me such a great set up!"

"Will anyone think less of me if I kinda am just a little jealous?" Buffy whispered to her friends. "I'm not sure I could slay to the beat—without demonic influence, anyway."

"Oh, don't worry Buffy," Willow soothed awkwardly. "I'm sure Giles can come up with some kind of training so you can practice, if you want."

The women's whispering drew the two strangers' attention even as the cassette deck clicked to quiet. Dean tried to hide the wicked sharp machete behind his back and grinned his best 'I'm harmless, really' smile. "Hi. Didn't see you there."

"Hi," Buffy responded automatically… then ran out of things to say. Then the silence got awkward. She never was great with the whole 'dealing with other people who knew about monsters' thing. Not enough practice, maybe. "So…. Been slaying vampires long?" she asked at last.

Dean's smile relaxed, he was happy to skip over the 'the truth is out there' speech, and let the machete drop to his side. "A while, yeah," he admitted easily. "Did we steal your gig?"

"No, actually. We were looking for a different demon. This one likes to make people spontaneously burst into song-"

"Oh, he dead," Dean interrupted. "Very dead. We killed that ass-hat two days ago."

"What?" Buffy blinked. "Wait, what?"

"Yeah," Dean nodded. "He needed to die! Do you know what he did?"

"Burned people alive," Buffy answered. "Yeah, we know."

It was Dean's turn to blink. "Huh?"

"Burned people alive?" Sam repeated. "That was the end game?"

"Well, yah." Buffy cocked her head to study the two men. "If you didn't realize it was responsible for the spontaneous human combustions around town, then why the intense need kill him? Not that I'm complaining, mind you. But now I'm curious."

"First, because I had to spend ten minutes –ten minutes!- listening to Sam's Blues number about his feelings. Now, I like Blues music. I do. Personally, I am a big fan of B.B. King. But Sam? Sam seriously cannot sing a note. It was ten minutes of torture." Dean rubbed his ear like they hurt from the memory alone.

"I wasn't that bad!" Sam objected.

Dean shot him an incredulous look. "It was a travesty of a performance and an offense to Blues musicians everywhere."

Sam glared, but didn't argue the point anymore. Instead, he dug into his jacket pocket for his I-Phone. "The next one, I recorded." He handed the phone off to Buffy and immediately turned to blockade Dean from snatching it back.

While the brothers wrestled, the Scoobies crowded around the screen. Somehow, Dean had ended up in an old-fashioned tuxedo complete tails, top hat, and a chrome-tipped cane. His tap shoes clicked with each step ending with him posed with one leg crossed behind the other and arms flung out to the side… a la Fred Astair. Beside him, the muscle car gracefully slid to his side like a dancing partner. It didn't _drive _there, but rather slid sideways gently, like it was a lightweight, stage piece on rollers.

A surprisingly melodic tenor sang out clearly from the recording. "My Baby and me! Wherever I go, and whatever I see! There's no place I know, no place I could be! As long as I'm there and my Baby's with me, that's where I call home!" On screen, Dean twirled in place to land in the driver's seat.

Finally, the real life Dean broke through his brother's grip long enough to swat the phone out of Buffy's hands.

"Dude!" Sam complained, checking his phone for damage.

"WHY did you record that crap?" Dean demanded hotly.

Sam smirked. "So I could send a copy to Jodie, Donna, and Claire."

"SAM!" Dean bellowed in dismay.

"I think Claire uploaded it to YouTube," Sam added.

"You look good in a tux," Willow offered hesitantly.

Dean's head whipped around. "Of course I look good in a tux! That's not the point. The important part is that the demon made me sing and _touched. my. car!"_

"Your Baby," Buffy snickered.

Dean glared, with the promise of all kinds of violence, death, and torture if she mocked him or his car again.

It bounced right off of the Slayer, of course. But the intensity made Xander shift uncomfortably in its proximity."

Dean rolled his shoulders, trying to shake some of the anger and tension out before continuing. "It touched my car. So I was going to kill it one way or another. But then –THEN- our show stopping number turned out to be a drag show. There were dresses and, and, and heels! And giant feathered fans," Dean mimed opening and closing a folding fan that would cover most of his body. "I mean, Sammy and that hair of his could pass for a girl-" (Sam glared) "-but I looked ridiculous!"

Buffy giggled. "Drag show? What was that song about?"

"Being brothers," Sam told them. (Dean was too busy being offended over being giggled at.) "And it wasn't a drag show, exactly. We were on the set of a local performance of 'White Christmas' and ended up re-writing the Betty and Judy Haynes "Sisters" song. In the actresses' costumes."

"Yeah. So Big Red did not make it off that stage," Dean proudly declared. "I killed him. I killed him _a lot._"

Sam actually winced at the memory. "Yeah. I haven't seen you stab something so much since you got rid of the Mark of Cain."

"Mark of Cain?" Willow gulped.

Dean ignored the redhead. "It touched the Impala. It made me wear a dress. He was lucky there wasn't torture before there was murder."

"Anyway," Sam looked to Buffy. "The singing demon was stabbed through the heart with an angel blade… a few times. We salted and burned the body. Then we melted the summoning talisman in holy fire. Its gone."

"Very… ah… thorough," Buffy noted.

Dean's face lit up. "You might say that its…" Dean broke out into song, "_Dust in the wind. All they are is dust in the wind. Dust… in the wind. Everything is dust in the wind…"_

As Dean continued to serenade them, Buffy asked, "Are you sure the demon's dead?"

Sam sighed. "Yeah. That's just… Dean."


End file.
